Various power supply apparatuses for sliding structure have been proposed for constantly supplying power from a power source provided at a vehicle body side to an electrical component or an accessory or the like provided at a sliding door of an automobile, for example.
For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a power supply apparatus for sliding structure shown in FIGS. 15A and 15B, provided with a case 82 vertically arranged at a sliding door 81 of an automobile, a guide rail arranged parallel within the case, a slider engaged to the guide rail so as to slide in a vehicle front-back direction, and a swing member 83 attached to the slider so as to swing in the vehicle front-back direction. A wiring harness 84 is passed through and fixed to an upper portion of the case 82 and wired substantially in a parallel manner from the slider through the swing member 83 to a harness fixture 86 of a vehicle body 85. The wiring harness 84 includes a plurality of electric wires passed through a corrugate tube (i.e. exterior member) made of synthetic resin.
As shown in FIG. 15A, in a state in which the sliding door 81 is slid to the vehicle front side and fully closed, the wiring harness 84 extends substantially straight from the harness fixture 86 of the vehicle body to the swing member 83 of the sliding door. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 15B, in a state in which the sliding door 81 is slid to the vehicle back side and fully opened (in fact, the sliding door 81 is moved outward away from the vehicle body 85 when it is slightly opened from the fully-closed state and located along an outer face of the vehicle body 85, and then it is slid further backward), the wiring harness 84 is bent in a substantially U-like or J-like shape in the vehicle front-back direction from the harness fixture 86 at the vehicle body side to the swing member 83 at the sliding door side.
Patent Literature 2 discloses a similar power supply apparatus arranged at the sliding door side as Patent Literature 1, in which an elastic member (not shown) is provided to bias the swing member 83 toward a passenger room side (i.e. in E direction shown in FIG. 15A) when the sliding door 81 is fully closed, so as allow the swing member 83 to swing easily (i.e. so as to allow the wiring harness 84 to bend easily) at the beginning of opening (i.e. during the opening operation) of the sliding door 81.
Furthermore, as the background art the above-mentioned Patent Literature 1 (Patent Literature 3) discloses the wiring harness having a plurality of electric wires passed through a caterpillar-like exterior member made of synthetic resin. This caterpillar-like exterior member includes a plurality of substantially rectangular-tube-shaped pieces bendably connected to each other by engaging a shaft and a hole.